Latest posts

11 October 2017

Having already spent the spring in Okinawa and Japan's top sightseeing destinations, we went back to Japan in June and July for the mountainous and northern regions: Chubu and Tohoku are also areas we cover in the Stefan Loose Japan Travel Guidebook and we spent a few weeks researching for the new edition.

This also meant discovering a couple of hidden gems: We visit the must-see destinations of Japan and the tourist hotspots quite often with our tour guiding work, but Chubu and Tohoku are off the beaten track.

Amongst others we explored the Fukui Dinosaur Museum and the traditional farmers' houses of Gokayama, the former "Imperial Headquarters" tunnels near Nagano, new post-tsunami developments in Sendai and Matsushima, the UNESCO World Natural Heritage area of Shirakami Sanchi and the remote Ogi Peninsula. We also visited a historical silk mill in Tomioka (also UNESCO-designated) and then added a few days in Kyushu for more industrial-age sightseeing. A personal highlight was a visit to the Furofushi outdoor hot spring in Koganezaki.

After the work part we went to Kyushu in the south of Japan for a few days. Visiting the highly active Sakurajima volcano near Kagoshima, we were caught in a rather strong earthquake (no serious effects, though). One highlight of our visit to Nagasaki was a boat trip to Gunkanjima , the deserted coal mining island that was one of the most densely populated places on the planet once. We also went on a tour inside the enormous Mitsubishi wharfs and visited several other Meiji-period industrial sites belonging to Japan's newest set of UNESCO World Heritage properties.

From Kyushu we took the ferry to South Korea that we had last visited in 2004. Some places we re-visited had changed tremendously such as Gyeongju and Haein-sa. We also made a trip to Gongju and Buyeo to look for remains from the Baekje Period (c. 18 BC–660 AD), where we were quite disappointed as most of the UNESCO locations were bare of any discernible historical remains but sported modern recreations of what some people think Baekje buildings may have looked like.

Church of Gracanica near Prishtina

After so much cultural tourism and research traveling we were looking forward to a few weeks of hiking on the Peaks of the Balkans long distance trail. However, the day we arrived in Prishtina we had to change plans: Natascha's sister, who had been diagnosed with ALS only four weeks earlier, had suddenly been hospitalised and was in a bad condition. ALS is an incurable and swift nerve disease that gradually reduces the functioning of nearly all muscles, most dangerously those necessary for swallowing and breathing.

After suffering for days – fully conscious! – in the machines of the intensive care unit, she died a week later in a palliative station.

Natascha went to Uzbekistan for some tour-guiding work at the end of September while Isa has been wrapping up the guide book research for Japan.

And here comes a list of the blog posts of the last three months, sorted by countries:

Denmark

We have no intention of adding to those highly original "5 things you must see in Copenhagen" lists – every guidebook would have a better base for such recommendations. Instead, we compared what we personally liked most about our recent trip to Copenhagen: some may have been "must-see" places, others were not. Our personal Top Five in Copenhagen

Japan

With so much research crammed into our weeks in Japan we still made it to some places on the far ends: The UNESCO World Heritage beech Forest of Shirakami Sanchi in the far north of Honshu (the main island), but also the strange UNESCO site of Gunkanjima in the South, well-known as a James Bond inspiration. And the Dinosaur Museum near Fukui (where you can actually dig for dinosaurs!) is in a region beyond the mountain ranges where most tourists never venture. Also, on a more general and practical note, we wrote a piece on how to use Japanese toilets – it's more difficult than you think!

South Korea

Between the ancient kingdoms of Korea and the modern urbanity of Seoul, one place that impressed us in a rather different way was the United Nations Cemetery in Busan – built for the many thousand Allied war dead and their veterans of the Korean War (1950-53). The topic seems current enough these days…

***You liked this post and are interested in future posts? ***

Then sign up for email notifications (via feedblitz; of course you can unsubscribe any time, and we don't use your e-mail for any other purposes), atom feed, or like us on Facebook. (see upper-right hand corner)

05 September 2017

"Please, visit the chapel". The caretaker ushers us into a small building near the entrance of the United Nations Cemetery in Busan. With a large gabled roof and some window panels and wooden pews inside, it looks like are chapel, but instead of an altar or a cross we face a large video screen. The chapel in the United Nations Cemetery doubles as a visitor centre.

The 20 minute video introduces the cemetery: why it was built, how many United Nations soldiers are buried here, how many there were involved in the war in total. Well over 40,000 United Nations soldiers died during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 (in addition to half a million South Korean civilians and soldiers). About 2300 of them from a dozen countries were buried at the United Nations Cemetery in Busan. The cemetery was established in 1955, after the war, as the central burial ground for all the foreign United Nations personnel who died in Korea, and who had previously been interred in several different military cemeteries in the Southern part of Korea. In addition to these war dead, surviving Korean War veterans also have the option of being buried here after their death.

Watching the film, we wonder why anyone would wish to be buried in Korea decades after participating in a war that must have been ghastly. Conveniently, the film brings up a veteran: he has been coming back for a number of years now, tending the graves of his comrades. "I promised them," he says, "to come and visit them as often as I can in case I survive." By now, he thinks, he has kept his promise. And the war, though horrible, was perhaps the most meaningful part of his life. His friends, after all, died for it. That's why he feels his grave should also be here.

From the chapel we walk over to a small museum displaying memorabilia of the troops from different nations including such diverse countries as New Zealand, Ethiopia, and Columbia. Behind it stretches the cemetery proper, consisting of the symbolic area with flags for all the participating nations, a large expanse of graves, several more memorials, and green lawns and ponds where geese waddle into the water.

The wall of one memorial is engraved with the names of all the foreign United Nations soldiers who died in the Korean War, an enormous list of presumably young people from Europe, Turkey, and thousands from the US. What made them risk their lives here? Of course on a military cemetery everyone is portrayed as a hero, which makes us rather uncomfortable. Quite likely, we muse, heroic sacrifice was not the main motive for many of them to go abroad with the military in the first place. But it also was a different time: when Communist North Korea overran the South in 1950, people felt that this was the end of the free world, and that their sacrifice would protect the future not only of South Korea but of the whole Western world and thus their own countries. In fact, we also consider now that they may have been right. What would have happened then, more than 60 years ago, without the United Nations forces intervening in the Korean War?

A week later when we arrive in Seoul, we are again reminded of the United Nations cemetery of Busan. There are cabinets in every metro station and every public building containing gas masks and emergency supplies. Video screens in public spaces not only show advertisements and news but also instructions for all kinds of emergencies, from first aid to fire and gas attacks. Seoul is only 40 km from the border with North Korea, and more than half of the population of South Korea live in the Metropolitan Region of Seoul – about 25 million. Without a peace treaty, both countries are technically still at war.

Safely back in Europe, the recent news about alarming developments in North Korea and war threats on all sides still send shivers down our spine: Kim's missile tests and nuclear bombs may threaten other countries to some extent – but they can be intercepted or forestalled, while the people in Seoul are sure to be affected by any hostilities that may arise.

***You liked this post and are interested in future posts? ***

Then sign up for email notifications (via feedblitz; of course you can unsubscribe any time, and we don't use your e-mail for any other purposes), atom feed, or like us on Facebook. (see upper-right hand corner)